A Change in Choice of Profession as a Way Out ?, Salomon Adler-Rudel
Source : Juedische Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik. Berlin, September/October 1933, pp. 113-123.
The developments of the past months upset the economic position of German Jewry in an extraordinary way. All of a sudden, thousands of Jewish people lost their economic existence. They were deprived of the possibility of being employed in professions that they had hitherto practised; in the middle of preparations for a career of their choice, thousands of Jewish people have to readjust and seek new occupations. This forces us to abandon the long-standing theoretical discussion over the future professional structure of German Jewry, and to apply ourselves to the practical solution of this question. In the past, our examination of the possibilities of a professional restructuring of German Jewry was based on recognition of a necessity for a gradual process that would continue over many years. Naturally, this process would have to originate with our youth. It would be directed toward fundamental changes in the professional stratification and to a transfer of our economically active people out of over-populated businesses and free professions, into other trades in which we have hitherto been represented in only negligible numbers. But on the fateful day of 1 April 1933, we were forced by the pressures of the political and economic developments in our non-Jewish surroundings to carry out a rapid reorientation of our economic activity in Germany. This makes the task considerably more difficult and requires the exertion of all available energies, in both moral and material respects.… Since we have a special competence in and a distinct inclination for the business, academic and free professions, the very professions we are being pushed out of, the shifting over to completely different types of trades will be particularly problematic. We cannot deal with the obstacles facing us by technical and material means alone, since a scheme for professional restructuring also involves special psychological factors [...] The professional reorganisation of the Jews in Germany will not only change the role we play in the economy, but, if it is to be meaningfully carried out, it also must decisively influence the intellectual countenance and the internal orientation of the Jewish people in Germany. This change in orientation and attitude towards trades from which we have hitherto kept away not only because of economic and social reasons, but also out of a sense of intellectual superiority, is perhaps the greatest obstacle the individual must overcome if he wishes to make the attempt to readapt professionally under the pressure of outside circumstances [...]
